Trump-press feud turns off the citizenry

A particular Three Stooges film featured a courtroom scene that had deteriorated into the usual Stooges’ chaos. A flabbergasted Curly observed the confusion and asked, “Is everybody dumb?”

That is the same question being asked now by the American citizenry as it observes the indecorous feud that the Trump administration and the press both seem determined to sustain.  Now that Trump is officially inaugurated, it would seem prudent for the White House to focus on governing and for the press to report actual news of substance. Instead, the combatants, who should all be interested in the public’s welfare over their own, are more interested in hurling verbal brickbats.

{mosads}Trump bluntly said recently, “I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” Press Secretary Sean Spicer scolded the press, saying “the default narrative is always negative” in news accounts of the administration. Trump’s chief White House strategist, Steve Bannon, turned up the heat even more, calling the press “the opposition party” and telling the media “to keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.”

Based on this inflammatory rhetoric, Trump advisors are apparently unaware that the White House is the most powerful agenda-setting platform in the world. The White House controls what to tell the press, when, and through which channels. The White House can also bypass the press to address the public directly whenever it likes. It is difficult to sympathize with people who have the power levers possessed by the White House.

The press, for its part, has acted frenzied at times. The interrupting outburst by CNN’s Jim Acosta during the Trump news conference accomplished nothing. So, too, nothing was accomplished when ABC’s Jonathan Karl demanded Spicer “pledge never to knowingly say something that is not factual.” Reporters freaked out when Spicer didn’t give the first question at a briefing, as is customary, to the Associated Press correspondent.

The media devoted disproportionate coverage to inauguration attendance and vote counts in California. Trump’s assertions on such topics are odd, to say the least, but to borrow a quote from another prominent politician, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” Trump’s governing decisions are more important for news coverage now than rehashing political box scores.

Trump’s attacks on the press are not the cause of the media’s credibility problems. The deterioration of public confidence in the press has been underway for twenty years, reaching all-time lows well before Trump even became the GOP nominee. Trump has, indeed, exploited distrust of the press with his caustic outbursts, but that tactic couldn’t work if citizens had solid confidence in a responsible press.

A New York Times column by law professors Ron Nell Jones and Sonja West expressed alarm that the Trump administration was damaging American press traditions and vilifying media institutions. The professors worry the First Amendment can’t protect the journalistic community from such assaults. But the First Amendment has never had an application to protect reporters from criticism by government officials, who themselves have free speech rights to attack the press as they like.

Be that as it may, attacking the press ultimately has little upside. Most journalists are tough enough to withstand verbal assaults and report as they see fit. Further, assailing the press comes off as an attempt to “undermine democracy,” as former Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps tweeted.

But regardless of how much Trump and his spokesmen hate the press, they can’t destroy First Amendment protections of a free press. It would take a total collapse of the judicial system to eliminate the press’ right to publish as it wishes. No president has had that kind of legal or popular clout.

The real victims of this range war are the American people and the democracy that was created for them. While Trump and the press bloody each other, collateral damage is inflicted on citizens who largely want a rational national dialogue, a functioning free press, and an effective government.

When the public sphere becomes nasty, citizens become political bystanders, wish a pox on the press and the government, and simply sing, “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.” Disenfranchised citizens then retreat to their bunkers to binge watch streaming television. That impassivity is more harmful to democracy than Trump’s press bullying or the media’s distracted reporting. 

Jeffrey McCall (@Prof_McCall) is a professor of communication at DePauw University.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.